So the hatemail dubbed me THE.... Sodomite Hal Duncan!! (sic) So I will wear that with pride, cuntfuckers. It's like The Outlaw Josie Wales only better, right? I mean, did he have a fully capitalised THE, an extra-long dramatic pause, and two exclamation marks? No, he did not. Chickenshit.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Scruffians News

With the SCRUFFIANS! short story collection starting to really take its final shape now--that's the trade edition cover up there--the Lethe Press website has an audio version of "How a Scruffian Starts Their Story" as read by Matt Cresswell available for your enjoyment. Go. Listen. And if you like it, keep an eye out here for the ToC of the collection. Lethe Press being a gay spec fic press, the focus in the selection of stories is gay-themed, so it won't have every single Scruffian story in the one place, I'm afraid. Don't hate me. There's a brand new story in the trade edition, two in the deluxe! And looking at the material that didn't make the cut because of that focus, I'm thinking that a second collection might well be on the horizon if I can find a good home for it. Actually, it appears I have two themes--sex and death--so it might well be more of a companion collection than second collection.

Also, along similarly Scruffian lines, I can now announce that a contract's been signed for a Scruffians mythos novella with LA CASE books, to be published in ebook form in both Italian and English. At 14,400 words (yes, exactly 14,4000 words--4 acts of 9 passages of 4 panels of 100 words,) this meaty little motherfucker is, if I say it meself, a must-read for anyone who's into these stories. You've read the Victorian era tales, where the Waiftaker General and his stickmen are still Fixing urchins from the Institute? You've read the modern era tales, where the Scruffians themselves offer the Stamp to any strays as wants to join a crib? Well, this pint-sized punk-ass rollicking adventure (of a full novel, really, just Fixed in scampitude) is the story of the most pivotal event in Scruffian history. Why, it's only the most important fabble of all, ain't it! It's the fabble of "The Taking of the Stamp."